AN: Praise my muse for the recent updates and let us end the month with a bang!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Star Wars, or Stargate movies, TV shows, games, books, or comics. This story features elements inspired by Warhammer 40K. They all belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not for sale or rent.
Chapter 18: Titanomachy
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Part 1
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Ra's yacht
Abydos
Milky Way Galaxy
The battle was going both very well and worse than it should have. There was no mistaking how effective the new equipment was – Ra could see it through the ships' sensors.
Yet, the enemy, while primitive, did have weapons that could kill even his guards in their advanced armor. Those missiles they used ineffectively against the Al'kesh and to kill at least one of his warriors were obviously meant to deal with ground and flying vehicles. That conclusion was obvious, considering that the enemy possessed such machines, even if Ra didn't get to see how effective they were. The Al'kesh crew wisely took out the vehicles first.
The reports Ra constantly got of the battle inside the pyramid were also interesting. His warriors managed to retrieve salvageable prisoners, even though they were dead, cut down by explosives used by their own side.
The bodies were in good enough condition for resurrection, and the first one was already in the Sarcophagus under guard.
The battle for the Chapa'ai was over as of the last report, and Ra knew his guard would soon be reinforced by one of his armies. That would help clear the pyramid much sooner, and he would have the force at hand when he found out which world had advanced enough to be dangerous. While burning the place from orbit was inevitable, Ra was interested in recovering examples of their weapon designs, especially the vehicles, after orbital fire cleansed all coherent resistance. He thought that comparing them to what Perun produced and the designs that came from his own scientists would be interesting to see.
After all, it wouldn't be the first or last time his kind took superior technology or designs and made them their own.
Power flooded the pyramid below his ship. The Stargate was active, and soon reinforcements would flood through.
Ra focused his attention on the events outside. Most enemies there were dead or too injured to resist. His warriors were now attempting to take prisoners intact enough not to require revival. They couldn't directly help their brothers fight within the pyramid because the enemy had the foresight to set up explosives and blow up the entrance, sealing themselves inside.
Under different circumstances, such a move might have bought them enough time to escape. Instead, they only offer a better training opportunity to his guards and a further test of the new equipment.
Ra didn't pay attention when the rings activated to bring the next group of his guards down, as well as prisoners and wounded. He had much of his guard still on board, many of them in the areas beside or right next to the transport platform.
The situation suddenly changed for the worse when an alert stabbed into Ra's brain, focusing his mind on the junction with the rings. While mistakes did happen and would be punished accordingly, the ongoing weapons fire inside the ship could not be an incident. A single discharge? Yes. What did the sensors warn him about? That was impossible.
Ra watched through a camera how an armored warrior with an energy blade, of all things, was busy tearing his guards apart. More figures… Those were Perun's Space Wolves! What treachery was this!?
The sheer shock at seeing warriors outfitted like his vassal's elites would have thrown Ra out of the neural connection if that was possible. He still recoiled and watched in stunned disbelief how the impossible happened.
Weapon fire froze in mid-air. Warriors flew in all directions, either hitting walls and the deck hard enough to bounce off them and stun them or straight into the waiting weapons of the intruders.
A modified Kara'kesh could potentially explain part of what Ra was seeing, but what about the rest? That had to be Perun leading the charge and what he was doing… Perun's host was a Hok'taur, Ra realized. His treacherous vassal proved it a moment later when he moved much faster than a human, even enhanced by a Goa'uld could dare dream of. He was a blur, dancing between Ra's guards, slaughtering them.
That got Ra out of his incredulous state of mind. He activated the internal defenses, then ordered all his guards to either converge on the Pel'tak or go and kill the intruders. He also powered up the engines. The longer the ship stayed above the pyramid, the more enemies could board it. Super host or not, Perun was one Goa'uld, and he had just a few warriors with him. Ra was sure the traitor would be overwhelmed between the defenses and the guard.
Once that was done, he would need to see if his forces on the ground were still alive. If not, Ra would destroy the area and search for answers in Perun's domain.
There was just one little problem with that plan.
Perun refused to die, and the same was true for his Jaffa. While the traitor's warriors were formidable, they would have been rapidly overwhelmed if not for Perun. He kept shattering any resistance that appeared in their way. Some kind of lighting attack that, according to the internal sensors, was not electricity-based, fried warriors and weapon emplacements.
An overpowered Kara'kesh, or perhaps something unique to the host, threw fully armored men as if they were leaves in the wind, leaving their broken bodies behind. That energy blade cut through doors, or Perun simply forced them apart with gestures despite magnetic locks reinforcing mechanical seals.
As Perun was getting closer and closer, his warriors fell back to take on the guard, converging on their position. They were buying time for their master. That meant they knew he was not unstoppable! Despite knowing that was the case intellectually, Ra couldn't help but feel unease, followed by a sensation he hadn't truly felt in a long time – the cold grasp of fear.
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I reined in my glee at letting myself cut loose properly for the first time since I ended up in this universe. Instead of the Dark Side playing tricks on me, the sheer joy of combat distracted me.
The resistance was heavier than anticipated. The ship was heading towards orbit, which was less than ideal, yet tearing through it was the best fun I've had in too damn long!
And why did Ra bring a small army when he was on a bloody vacation, anyway?!
I had to get to Ra and deal with him before he set up the ship to blow in my face, or worse, he got to an escape craft and ran away.
"Gorski, hold this position!" I told my Prime and raced forward, leaving my Jaffa behind so I could go all out without killing them.
I shoved aside all distracting thoughts and submerged myself fully into the Dark Side. Even more cold fire raced through my veins, followed by familiar, sweet warmth. My body tingled with power, begging to be unleashed, and I obliged.
The Force gleefully manifested around me, and the Dark Side burst forth. The lights around me dimmed, swallowed by the manifestation of my power. Hoarfrost formed around the deck and walls, even as the life support system struggled to keep the temperature up.
I let some of my control slip. With the Dark Side not trying to mind fuck me all day, every day, that was an acceptable trade-off for power. Metal rippled around me, torn asunder by the Dark Side responding to my fury.
More of Ra's warriors ran to meet me, and I screamed my frustration at them. The Force burst forth, shattering armor, pulverizing bones, and rupturing flesh.
I jogged through the corpses of some of the best-equipped and trained warriors in the galaxy, yet they died without knowing what they faced.
An armored door barred my way. The Dark Side rippled, eager to do my bidding. It flowed through me and smashed into the alloy, shattering it like glass.
I could sense Ra nearby. His fear was delicious.
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Part 2
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Ra's yacht
Abydos
Milky Way Galaxy
Ra thought he had encountered all the wonders and horrors this galaxy had to offer in his long life. Now, he knew he was wrong for a fact. There was no denying that Perun, or whatever pretended to be Perun, was a monster like no other.
Whatever energy surrounded Perun was wreaking havoc on the ship's structure and internal sensors. The monster's progress was faster. Anyone who tried to slow him down died when they faced Perun. The internal defenses were crushed, becoming more twisted metal, just like the corridors in his wake.
There was no stopping the monster, Ra understood. He wasn't one to fight losing battles. Instead, Ra ignored the death stalking through his ship and gave his full attention to the computer core. He set up the self-destruct, locked the access points behind codes and his signature, then jumped off the command throne and headed for his escape pod. It was small, and while hyperspace capable, it was slow. He would be stuck for weeks getting to the closest safe world with Stargate, though comparing that to facing Perun was a bargain he would take any day.
Screams echoed from near the Pel'tac before suddenly cutting off.
Ra left his dignity behind and ran. He got to the transit lift that brought him right beside his escape pod and opened the hidden compartment, concealing it with his Kara'kesh. He raced inside, got into the seat, and powered up the tiny vessel.
Relief flooded the fleeing System Lord as soon as he launched and cleared the superstructure. Ra wasn't about to wait around – setting proper course could wait until he was away from this cursed system. He ran an emergency program that would rapidly calculate a brief, safe hyperspace jump and finally relaxed a bit. Ra shifted to get comfortable for the jump just as the calculation was completed, and power from the capacitors went into the hyperdrive.
Reality tore asunder, and his escape vessel shot at it.
Ra smiled at the victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
The smile on his host's face froze. The hyperspace window was right in front of him. He could sense the engines straining to get him through, and the hyperdrive was working as intended. Yet, his vessel was not moving. If it hadn't been for the inertial dampeners, Ra would have been smeared across the cockpit.
"What is this?" Ra hissed. He ran diagnostics and looked around for anything that might be amiss.
There were no issues, yet the escape pod wasn't moving forward despite the engines straining. The only thing that changed was that he was moving slowly backward. Ra had to check and recheck to make sure there was no mistake. A warning lit up the control panel, and at the same time, the computer informed him that the hyperdrive was rapidly overheating. It was not meant to keep a hyperspace rift open for more than a few moments.
Ra had had to shut down the engines before they overheated. He saw the hyperspace rift moving away from him before it shrank and disappeared in a burst of exotic particles. That was an optical illusion. The rift wasn't moving; his ship was, no matter how impossible it was.
Ra reset all systems before rebooting the computer and trying again. He had had to get away from here before his Cheops blew up!
A wave of ice water smashed Ra in the face, or so it felt. His attention returned from the escape pod's systems, and the Supreme System Lord blanched at what he was seeing. His vessel was drifting right in front of the Pel'tak's observation port. Perun would have been almost within reach if it hadn't been for the transparent metal of the viewport and cockpit. There were just a few meters between them.
This was Perun, too, in person. Ra watched as the smart metal helmet, a gift he gave his vassal, retracted, revealing a face he knew well.
However, it was different now. Black veins spread around Perun's eyes and lips like deadly venom was killing him! Ra could only hope this was the case! It would serve the traitor right!
What was most striking were the eyes. They were two burning infernos that stared right into Ra's mind.
Literally! What followed was similar, yet so different from linking up with a computer through a neural interface, yet the effect was identical. Perun's mind somehow smashed into Ra's own, invading his thoughts. His host screamed, and the Goa'uld felt vessels burst within the human's brain.
Ra recoiled in shock when he understood what Perun was doing. That thing was tearing the lockdown codes of the Cheops' computer out of his mind!
The Supreme System Lord laughed even as he felt his host's agony and deafening screams within the tiny cockpit. Those codes were useless without his neural signature, and Perun was running out of time. They were going to die together then! Knowing he would take his killer in oblivion with him felt good.
Ra could sense Perun's realization, and it was sweet when the monster also understood it was dead!
Boiling rage slammed into Ra, shattering his mind. Part of him could only scream while Perun dug for codes and contingencies so he could stop the self-destruct. Ra saw his host raise its hand. A fractured part of his mind activated the Kara'kesh disabled safety and security protocols so his device and Perun's could link.
That wasn't how these things were supposed to work. However, a Kara'kesh could be used to strike at a person's mind, perhaps even allowing you to glimpse the odd surface thought. The best scientists Ra had could push the technology further, and it wasn't for a lack of trying.
Perun's unnatural powers bridged the gap where technology proved inadequate. Their minds were connected. Their Kara'kesh were tied as well, and then the monster plunged his other hand into the neural interface on the Pel'tak's command console.
Ra howled when Perun tore at his fractured mind and shoved his breaking essence at the computer core.
It shouldn't have worked. What Perun was doing was impossible!
Yet, the fragments that were Ra felt Perun's vicious satisfaction and the dark promise about what awaited them. The mind that once overwhelmed an Asgard's consciousness raged, cried, howled, and clawed at something it had never encountered before and couldn't fathom. The boiling fury that was Perun merely sneered at him, ignoring his attempts to fight back.
The Kara'kesh on Ra's hand grew hotter and hotter due to the strain of maintaining a connection through that much space and metal. Flesh cooked, cracked, and blackened. Ra's host could no longer scream, and his brain was shutting down.
Ra was vaguely aware that now his murderer had access to the Cheops' computer core and was busy replacing the neural signature that locked down many of its functions with its own. When that was done, Perun would have full access to the ship and could entirely focus on Ra.
The Kara'kesh spluttered and sparked. It was so hot the dead hand caught on fire. Finally, the connection broke, and for a brief moment, Perun recoiled before focusing on finishing the imprint of his signature into the computer core.
At that point, what was left of Ra's fragmented mind knew they were dead. Worse than dead. He threw everything at the neural connection with his Kara'kesh. Just before the hand device finally burned out, Ra ordered his escape pod to self-destruct.
The last thing Ra saw before his host died was Perun glowering at him. He wasn't sure if the armored shutters above the viewport came down in time, and it didn't matter. After all he saw and suffered, Ra was convinced that his escape pod blowing up wouldn't be enough to kill that abomination.
The reactor went critical, and the explosion shredded Ra within his host before immolating them.